Bearcats Football

Cincinnati Football: Best Guestimate At UC’s Mid-Spring Depth Chart

by Chris Bains Follow @cinbinbains

On Tuesday morning I checked out one of Cincinnati’s spring practices. It’s been a while since I made the trek down to Clifton to take a look at the football team. It was the Tulsa game on the cold Saturday evening that seemed like a decade ago. Since then, nothing football related, at least.

So it was rather refreshing finally seeing the Bearcats back in action, albeit in a practice setting, and it truly helped me take the pulse of the team at this point in the year by building out the two deep at the bottom of this post.

FULL DISCLAIMER before I begin, this is but a best guestimated depth chart in the middle of spring practices five and a half months away from Cincinnati’s first game of the 2016 season. The coaches are more in experiment mode than focused on prepping the team for an actual game. It’s about finding the right role fit for what they want to do next season while at the same time figuring out exactly what that strategy is. There could be hundreds of changes between now and when the final depth chart is released in late August.

An alternate title for this post might be “here’s who I just happened to see running with the first and second team offense and defense on Tuesday morning.”

This statement is no more true that at wide receiver, where Kahlil Lewis, Tshumbi Johnson, and Devin Gray look to be the starters ahead of Avery Peterson, Tyrin Summers, and Nate Cole in three wide receiver sets. Again, that’s just my observation from seeing them with the first and second teamers on Tuesday. Plus, considering how the Bearcats tend to go seven or eight deep at the position, any combination of those receivers could see the field at the same time. So the delineation between starter and back up doesn’t really matter.

That’s the trend you’ll see throughout the below depth chart, lot’s of players separated by “-or-“, indicating that either could be a starter or back up at this very early stage of Cincinnati’s 2016 football season. But hopefully this gives you at least a decent idea of what this team looks like right now.

Offense

  • Quarterback: Gunner Kiel -or- Hayden Moore, Ross Trail
  • Running Back: Mike Boone -or- Tion Green, Deionte Buckley
  • X-Wide Receiver: Kahlil Lewis -or- Avery Peterson
  • Y-Wide Receiver: Tshumbi Johnson -or- Tyrin Summers
  • Z-Wide Receiver: Devin Gray -or- Nate Cole
  • Tight End: Tyler Cogswell, DJ Dowdy
  • Left Tackle: Ryan Stout, Reed Armagost
  • Left Guard: Idarius Ray, Evan Mallory
  • Center: Deyshawn Bond, David Niehaus
  • Right Guard: Ryan Leahy, Delonte Murray
  • Right Tackle: Korey Cunningham, Morgan Jones

Defense

  • Strongside Defensive End: Mark Wilson, Caleb Ashworth
  • Defensive Tackle: Cortez Broughton, Hakeem Allonce
  • Defensive Tackle: Sione Tongamoa, Marquise Copeland -or- Norman Oglesby
  • Weakside Defensive End: Kimoni Fitz, Kevin Mouhon
  • Middle Linebacker: Bryce Jenkinson, Antonio Kinard
  • Outside Linebacker: Eric Wilson, Jaylyin Minor
  • Cornerback: Linden Stephens, JJ Pinckney
  • Strong Safety: Carter Jacobs, Sheldon Doss
  • Free Safety: Tyrell Gilbert, Malik Clements
  • Cornerback: Grant Coleman, Alex Thomas
  • Nickelback: Mike Tyson, Chris Murphy